This dissertation applies the concept of utopia to literature surrounding the English exploration and colonization of America. The term "utopia" refers to both a literary form and to that concept in human consciousness which catalyzes change in physical reality. Authors express utopia in the visionary aspects of their written representations. Visionary representations produce expectations of what the future may hold, and in this way they helped bring European civilization to America. Studying these representations is valuable for historical clarity and because these representations reveal utopia's function in affecting the course of the future.The study of early English-American literature requires terminology that the current reservoir of utopian terminology does not provide. I offer new terminology. This study defines four broad types of utopian vision specifically applicable to the English exploration and colonization of America. Active Complex visions prioritize maximum manipulation of the landscape to accommodate all the needs of a large and diverse population. Active Simple visions center on one staple venture, like sheepherding, to accommodate the needs of a small population. Divine Patent visions prioritize conformity to values inscribed in theistic religious literature. Natural Primitive visions prioritize the elimination of social infrastructure to achieve harmony with nature. These four types of utopian vision correspond to myths of the past that authors projected as hope for an ideal future.The four types of utopian vision appear throughout the narratives collected by Richard Hakluyt. Voyages by explorers like Sir John Hawkins, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and Sir Walter Raleigh generated representations of America that expressed Active Complex, Active Simple, or Divine Patent visions. These representations also provided imagery that led to Natural Primitive visions of America. Captain John Smith's narratives about Virginia and New England reveal visions of Active Complex utopias. Puritan authors like William Bradford, Edward Winslow, John Winthrop, and Cotton Mather represented New England with Divine Patent visions. All of these utopian representations influenced later authors, including Thomas Jefferson, Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, and Timothy Dwight. They also continue to influence the way we imagine the United States of America today.

Historical narratives and anecdotes concerning Captain John Smith have been told and retold throughout the entire history the United States of America, and they have proved to be sacred, influential, and contested elements in the construction of the individual, sectional, regional, and national identity of many. In this thesis, I first outline some of the history of how narratives and discourses surrounding Captain John Smith were directly connected with the identity of many Americans during the 18th and 19th century, especially Virginians and Southerners. Then I outline how these narratives and discourses from the 18th and 19th centuries have continued and evolved in the 20th and 21st centuries in American scholarship and popular culture. I demonstrate how Captain John Smith went from being used as a symbol for regional and sectional identity to a symbol for broader national American identity, and how he has anachronistically come to be considered an American. I then show how Captain John Smith has continued to be constructed, to a seemingly larger degree than previous centuries, as a hero of almost mythic proportions. Finally I demonstrate how this constructed American hero is used as a posterchild for various interest groups and ideologies in order to legitimize the places of certain discourses and behavior within constructed and contested American identities.